Shortlist, Shortlist, & Finalists, Oh My

April 21, 2017

Best Translated Book Awards Logo

  • The Millions has announced the fifteen finalists for the 2017 Best Translated Book Awards, including ten finalists for fiction and five finalists for poetry. Michael Shaub, writing for the Los Angeles Times, points out that, altogether, the finalists represent thirteen countries and nine languages.

    Five books between the two genres are translated from Spanish, the most represented language on the list. They include Wicked Weed by Pedro Cabiya, fiction translated by Jessica Powell (Dominican Republic, Mandel Vilar Press); Zama by Antonio di Benedetto, fiction translated by Esther Allen (Argentina, New York Review Books); Umami by Laia Jufresa, fiction translated by Sophie Hughes (Mexico, Oneworld); Among Strange Victims by Daniel Saldaña Paris, fiction translated by Christina MacSweeney (Mexico, Coffee House Press); and Extracting the Stone of Madness, a poetry collection by Alejandra Pizarnik, translated by Yvette Siegert (Argentina, New Directions).

    Three book finalists are translated from French, making the French language the second-most represented language on the list. They include Eve Out of her Ruins by Anna Devi, fiction translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (Mauritius, Deep Vellum); Ladivine by Marie NDiaye, fiction translated by Jordan Stump (France, Knopf); and In Praise of Defeat by Abdellatif Laabi, a poetry collection translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith (Morocco, Archipegalo Books).

    The remaining books were translated from the Dutch, German, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Wolof. They include Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lucio Cardoso, fiction translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson; Doomi Golo by Boubacar Boris Diop, fiction translated from the Wolof by Vera Wulfing-Lecki and El Hadji Moustapha Diop; War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans, fiction translated from the Dutch by David McKay; Oblivion by Sergi Lebedev, fiction translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis; Berlin-Hamlet by Szilard Borbely, poetry translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet; Of Things by Michael Donhauser, poetry translated from the German by Nick Hoff and Andrew Joron; and Cheer Up, Femme Fatale by Yideum Kim, poetry translated from the Korean by Ji Yoon Lee, Don Mee Choi, and Johannes Goransson.

    The 2017 Best Translated Book Award comes with a $5,000 cash prize for both, authors and translators, and the winners will be announced on May 4 during a ceremony in New York.

     

  • The Man Booker International Prize revealed the shortlist of six books for its 2017 prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world.

    Each shortlisted author and translator receives £1,000. The £50,000 prize for the winning book will also be divided equally between its author and translator.

    The 2017 shortlist is as follows:

    Mathias Enard (France), trans. Charlotte Mandell (US), Compass (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
    David Grossman (Israel), trans. Jessica Cohen (US), A Horse Walks Into a Bar (Jonathan Cape)
    Roy Jacobsen (Norway), trans. Don Bartlett (UK), Don Shaw (UK), The Unseen (Maclehose)
    Dorthe Nors (Denmark), trans. Misha Hoekstra (US), Mirror, Shoulder, Signal (Pushkin Press)
    Amos Oz (Israel), trans. Nicholas de Lange (UK), Judas (Chatto & Windus)
    Samanta Schweblin (Argentina), trans. Megan McDowell (US), Fever Dream (Oneworld)

     

  • The Chautauqua Institution announced six books as the 2017 finalists for The Chautauqua Prize, now in its sixth year:

    The General vs. The President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War, by H.W. Brands (Doubleday)
    The Fortunes, by Peter Ho Davies (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
    Blood River Rising: The Thompson-Crimson Feud of the 1920s, by Victoria Pope Hubbell (Iris Press)
    Underground Airlines, by Ben H. Winters (Mulholland Books)
    American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good, by Colin Woodard (Viking)
    The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father, by Kao Kalia Yang (Metropolitan Books)

    The winning book will be selected from this shortlist and announced in mid-May.

    Awarded annually since 2012, The Chautauqua Prize “celebrate[s] a book that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and to honor the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts.” The winning author receives $7,500 and all travel and expenses for a one-week summer residency at Chautauqua.

 

Image Credit: Best Translated Book Awards.

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